How do I research a company before an interview?
TL;DR
Go beyond the website and LinkedIn. At senior level, your research should give you a point of view on the business, not just familiarity with it. Sign up to the product, dig into their accounts, talk to people who know the company, research the interviewers, and understand the market context. The goal is to synthesise everything into a clear perspective on where the company is, what its biggest challenges are, and what you would prioritise.
Why does surface-level research fail at senior level?
Most interview advice tells you to read the company website, check their LinkedIn page, and look at recent news. That is the bare minimum. Every candidate does it, which means it does not differentiate you when you use this information in interviews.
At senior level, the panel expects more than mere familiarity. They want to see that you have thought about the challenges, formed a view on the opportunities, and can engage in a conversation about where the company needs to go. That requires research that goes deeper than what is publicly presented, because what a company says about itself and what is actually happening are often two different things.
The real value of pre-interview research is synthesis, not recall. As an outsider with fresh eyes, you have something the people inside the company often lack: perspective. You can see blind spots they have become too close to notice. Being able to articulate those in the interview is one of the most powerful ways to demonstrate your value before you have even started the job.
Use the product yourself
If the company has a product you can access, sign up for it. Use it. Go through the onboarding, explore the features, test the user journey. If there is a free trial, take it. If there is a paid version, consider paying for it. The cost may be small relative to the insight.
Notice what works and what does not. Where is the friction? What is missing? What would you change? If you can, get someone else to use it too so you can see it from a different perspective, for example as an end customer rather than an administrator.
This gives you something no amount of desktop research can: a first-hand experience of the product that you can speak to with genuine authority in the interview.
Dig into their financials
For UK companies, their accounts are publicly available on Companies House. Download them and read them. Look at revenue trends, cost base, and anything that stands out as unusual such as unexplained uplifts in costs or shifts in where the money is going. For larger or publicly traded companies, their annual report will give you more detail, though bear in mind it is a curated version of the truth. Read it critically, not at face value.
Try to understand the financial pressures the company is under. A venture-backed company expecting rapid growth has different priorities from a mature business protecting its margins. A company with flat or declining revenue is facing different decisions from one that is scaling. That context shapes the role you are interviewing for and what will be expected of you.
You will not understand everything in the accounts, and that is fine. The gaps in your understanding become good questions for the interview, and asking informed financial questions signals commercial thinking that most candidates do not demonstrate.
Talk to people who know the company
Your network is a research tool. Before the interview, think about who you know who might have a connection to the company, its customers, its sector, or its competitors. Reach out and ask.
Former employees can tell you about the culture and working style. Customers or users can tell you what the product actually does for them and where it falls short. Sector contacts can give you market context that the company itself may not have. Even a single conversation with someone who has direct experience of the business will give you more depth than hours of desktop research.
Ask open questions: what do you think of them? What works? What is missing? What would make this product really valuable to you? The answers often surface insights that are not visible from the outside.
Research the interviewers, not just the company
Look up each person you will be meeting, on Linkedin and online search. Understand their background, their career path, what they have worked on before, and what might be driving their perspective. Someone from a finance background will evaluate you differently from a founder. Someone with a clinical or technical background will care about different things from someone in commercial leadership.
This shapes how you show up. If you understand their motivations and their likely concerns, you can calibrate your responses accordingly. It also gives you material for building rapport: shared experiences, mutual connections, or genuine interest in their work.
Understand the market, not just the company
The company exists within a market, and the panel expects senior candidates to understand that context. What are the macro trends affecting the sector? Who are the competitors and how are they positioned? Where is the market heading, and how well positioned is this company for what comes next?
Look for what is absent as well as what is present. If the company's materials do not mention a major market shift, that tells you something. If their strategy focuses on one segment but the growth opportunity is in another, that is worth raising. If their competitor analysis is narrow or outdated, you may be able to offer a wider lens.
Synthesise your research into a point of view
A useful way to structure your thinking is a mini SWOT analysis. Using everything you have gathered, map out what you see as the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This forces you to move beyond collecting information and into interpreting it. It will also surface questions you want to ask in the interview, particularly around the areas where you are uncertain or where the company's own view may differ from yours.
From that SWOT, distil your point of view into a headline finding supported by two to three points. For example: "I think the biggest challenge this company faces is X, and the reasons I see that are Y and Z." It does not need to be a complete strategy. It needs to be clear, defensible, and grounded in what you found.
When you share it in the interview, structure it top-down. Lead with the headline, support it with your two to three points, and go into detail only when the panel asks. This mirrors how senior leaders communicate and keeps you in control of the conversation rather than unloading everything at once. You do not need to share all of your research. Sharing too much too early leaves nothing for later rounds and can come across as having fixed ideas before you have listened. Let the panel pull the detail from you.
Last updated September 2026